


The Fighter

by HerbertBest



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Anal Sex, Angst, Burials, Character Study, Desperate Sex, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gore, Grief/Mourning, Infidelity, Multi, Post-Apocalypse, Psychological Trauma, Soft Apocalypse, Stealing, Survival, Violence, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2018-10-20 02:03:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 12,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10652658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/pseuds/HerbertBest
Summary: It's 2018.A blood-borne illness has slowly transformed California into a cloistered world filled with desperate, frightened people.At night, The  Dying emerge, and consume whatever they can stuff into their greedy mouths.The Grumps are surviving as best they can, with whatever they can grow, scrounge, steal, beg, buy or hack.   Dan tries not to think of the cramped quarters, deprived existence or spotty communication with the outside world.Then he gets a text from the long-missing Brian.  And suddenly, irrevocably, the fragile balance of his world changes.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Lyger for the loose idea and impetus to put this story together!

It started with a birthday clown. 

That was the honest truth, Dan would learn years later. One of the clowns had been hiking in the Congo and had come upon an angry gorilla. There had been a bite, which turned into a mild cold, which soon turned into a flu that was easily spread through the blood stream via saliva. The symptoms made the victims zombie-like, but far more destructive. And the infected – they had an awful inclination toward biting their victims, deep and quick, like an angry cobra.

The media called it The Dying, and The Dying cut through California like a carving knife. Dan had no time to prepare, to fly back to New York and be with his family – where he always told himself he wanted to be when he died, if the threat of dying were a clear and present possibility – to even properly barricade his new house before they laid waste to his neighborhood. 

Statewide the effect was the same. Bodies died in the street and rotted into the sewer, befouling the water supply; people disappeared, refused to come to work and so industry stalled. The president cut California off from the rest of the country to contain the mess; supply lines were soon inner-state only. Power, food and water were spotty conveniences. Dan’s phone was frustratingly unreliable; he could barely get five minute calls in to his sister, barely had power enough to check his messages. 

He couldn’t get through to Brian. That was one of the things that scared him the most.

Six months, he had hoped to hear from him, had calculated the risk of leaving the office and going to his rescue. It was only ten minutes from the office – nothing. It absolutely galled him that he couldn’t get there. Since that day, thousands had fallen in the street. He, Arin, Suzy, Holly, Ross, Vernon and Barry stayed together at the office, which was closer to convenience, closer to the interstate. They did what they could with their supplies, with their hemmed-in lives and constant danger on the street. Rumors kept them on their toes. The dead could walk. Who knew what other horrors they could accomplish?

Dan tried not to think too much about it until his phone suddenly buzzed. He took advantage of the two bars he had left and opened it.

It was Brian’s number.

The message was simple, terse. _In Long Beach, trapped in the studio. Supplies low. Come if you can. Please._

Dan stared at the gun still clutched in his hand. He had no idea how to fire the fucking thing; the Dying didn’t have the coordination to clamber up their back stairs, which were too steep to be traversed by their clumsy toes, so all of the weapons Ross had invested in had thus far not been used. 

Dan's emotions were wildly conflicted. If he could just make it from one end of the state to the other.

If...no. He would. Brian needed him, after all. Brian had uprooted his entire life just to make Dan happy and now..

In that moment he stopped thinking of dying and started thinking of living.


	2. Prepared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan packs for his trip, recruits his team and takes his mind off of things for awhile thanks to Arin.

His backpack – as it was in those pre-Dying days – was a source of comfort and utilitarian joy to him. It was still as sturdy as ever, though a long pale scrape on its black underside testified to his last attempt at making a food run - which had resulted in him grabbing two cases of ramen but also had the net profit loss of a chunk of his precious hair. One of the Dying had frantically pulled it out in an attempt at sinking their teeth into his flesh.

That was the day he watched as Arin calmly gunned down his first zombie. Suzy had made him a celebratory cake when they returned, triumphant with their wares.

Dan had been too sickened by the memory and the thought of what could have been to help him eat it.

He set that thought aside, packing modestly for the journey in the Space’s kitchen. Food was the first priority, and he took his fair portion of the stores they had left – a few apples, three ramen packs, a handful of energy bars, a pack of Skittles, and several bottles of water, in case he couldn’t find a clean public fountain. He packed an extra tee-shirt, then took a small bottle of hand sanitizer, a bundle of gauze he’d helped Suzy and Holly and Barry roll out of spare costume material, and athletic tape. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use any of it, but it was important to keep wounds clean and the scent of blood out of the air for the Dying were attracted to its odor.

The rest of his choices were prudent, economical; a few dollars, though paper money was currently useless to most of California’s citizenry. His phone charger, on the off chance that he found a place with a working generator. His driver’s license, in case he came upon a military vehicle and needed proof of identification. As he shoved it in his pocket he thought quite briefly about the irony of it listing him as an organ donor.

Last of all, draped against his thick, long neck, was the Star of David necklace his grandmother had sent him, with its tiny blue cabochon at the very center, the last form communication he’d had with Ruth or anyone else from Jersey in two weeks. He wore it and thought of them, tried to keep his loves close to his beating heart, even though he still felt estranged from the faith that had defined his youth and adolescence. Though hell continued to rain down all around him, his skepticism still kept him questioning.

His thoughts were interrupted by a very familiar voice. “DAN!” Arin yelled, slamming through the beaded curtain cordoning off the kitchen from the rest of the Space, “good news!” he said, and ambled to the refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of water and slammed half of it down in two gulps.

Dan watched him drink, smiling minutely. “What? Did you finally beat Barry’s score on the pinball machine?” 

“Nah,” Arin grinned, brushing back his long, sweaty hair and smirking. “Something way more important.” He let the dramatic silence build, and then said, “The garden has cucumbers!” 

Dan couldn’t help himself – he actually gave Arin a bit of a victory dance, spinning him around like a goofball. If you’d told him months ago he’d be dancing over the idea of growing vegetables, he’d’ve called you a liar, but then again he’d never expected to apply his ex-stoner knowledge to making a solar powered hydroponic vegetable garden out of compost and seeds scored from Holly’s last Michaels run. The tomatoes and squash were already growing, and the cucumbers, strawberries and mustard greens apparently weren’t far behind.

Dan’s pride and joviality gave way when Arin’s curious eyes landed upon the backpack. “Where are you going?”

The reality of the situation crashed back in on Dan again – he remembered abruptly the desperate tone of Brian’s text. Without adding anything else to the conversation, he pulled out his phone and showed Arin the phone.

The man’s features collapsed into a confused frown. “How do you even know it’s him?” Arin asked. 

“It has to be,” Dan said. “Do those things even know how to text?”

“It might be someone who came by. Maybe they want to trap you, take you for ransom?”

“Who needs money? Money doesn’t mean dick in this city anymore.” That was a sad truth. What difference did it make if he’d sold out theaters and had had an album on the Billboard charts when everyone he knew and loved was in danger? When Dan looked back over his shoulder he couldn’t help but notice the clear jealousy in Arin’s face. Did he think he was putting Brian’s well-being over Arin’s? Over his own? How did Arin not know that he’d walk through fire to keep him alive?

Times had changed. 

Which was clearly proven when Arin wrapped his long, thick arm around Dan’s middle and Dan sighed as he leaned back into him. “So. Do we have time for a quickie before you go?”

“Fucking Jesus, dude,” Dan muttered into Arin’s shoulder. 

“What?!” Arin nibbled his neck. “I’m sending you off to war, bro. I want to give you a happy memory to look back on.”

“You can come with me, if you want,” Dan said. Honestly, considering his lack of nerve around weapons having Arin along might be the best idea.

Arin smiled. “Okay. You, me, Suzy and Holly. If you’re really going to fucking do this, you’re gonna need back up. I’ll be the muscle, Suzy’ll be the backup, and Holly can help out if we get hurt. Vernon and Ross and Barry’ll do fine alone for awhile.”

Arin’s reasoning was immediately clear to Dan. He knew Arin wouldn’t leave Suzy behind, not in a million years. What surprised him was the notion of asking Holly to come; he couldn’t envision her leaving Ross behind either.

His murky thoughts flew away when he felt Arin’s warm, slippery palm descend along his abdomen. “Earth to Dan,” Arin said, nibbling again on the tensile cords of Dan’s neck. In spite of himself, Dan shuddered, remembering. “Are you gonna fuck my ass or what?”

“…If we can do it quietly, sure,” Dan said tentatively. 

“If we’re gonna be out on the road with no guarantee that we’re coming back,” Arin said, pulling down Dan's sweatpants and freeing his cock, “the least you can do is take me until I forget where I am.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Dan said, and slid quietly to his knees.

 

*** 

 

The first time they did this it was comfort sex, a gesture of love and intimacy, a week after the first wave of Dying hit. The government had seized control of broadband signals, commandeering them for the National Guard’s use,. The group of them had lined up to use a phone booth, and when Arin got in touch with people back in Florida he learned that his mother had passed away. She’d had a heart attack, out of pure fright and worry for her son, and the guilt had been a weight on Arin’s heart.

Dan hadn’t even bothered to think twice when Arin threw himself at Dan out of the blue late at night, when they were watching a frequently-buffering Netflix stream thanks to Ross' terrible jury rigged home hotspot (which was never strong enough and never stayed stable for long); Arin needed him, the comfort of his body and the shelter of love. All of his squeamishness about touching men, kissing and fucking and sucking and tasting them, melted away like snow on a July morning.

Since then, he and Arin had made love in a variety of places and ways. In a portable shower while Ross made dick jokes outside the door and waited for his turn; on the couch in the Grump room, whenever they had electricity and a signal enough to try and put out content; on the stairs; in the meeting room, when everyone else was asleep. Every experience was unique, different; every single time, he learned something new.

At this moment, with his cock buried in Arin, a half a bottle of Astroglide upended between them and Arin pressed face-down against the kitchen counter, Dan learned that his best friend’s plush ass was as beautifully accommodating as his mouth.

Dan could only keep his cock sliding, keep the motion in the ocean an his nerve endings tingling – as much as he hated fucking standing up the sensations were too good to stop. “Fuck, baby girl,” he whispered against Arin’s neck, bending himself in two, his cock slipping and sliding into and out of him as he groped Arin’s warm torso. The tips of his fingers brushed Arin’s cock and Arin muffled a cry into the marble, his cock dripping into Dan’s palm.

“Fuck,” Arin moaned, extending the last syllable, his neck straining as he planted his feet and hunched hard into Dan’s thrusts. “Fucking ream me with that dick,” he growled, as if he were in a porn movie.

“What was that?” Dan whispered, slapping him gently on his left rear cheek, making Arin cry out again.

Arin flicked his sweaty hair from his face with a twist of his neck, meeting Dan’s eyes intensely. “Fuckin’ _ream_ me!” he said, his voice a needy whine.

Dan began to rock into him firmly, moving faster, his balls aching, his slick fingers moving awkwardly as he jerked Arin off. His hand moved faster as he tried to apply a little dirty talk to the situation. “Do you wanna come, baby? Do you want this fucking dick to make you come harder than you ever have in your whole life?”

“Yeah,” Arin whined. “Please fuckin’….make me fucking come, dude, please!”

Dan’s fingers moved in concert with his hips, with his cock, his balls drawing up tight, the aching sweetness spreading from the root of his cock to the tip, making him spasm. “Fucking come then, baby girl, come for me!”

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!” Arin chanted mindlessly, riding back into Dan’s thrusting, almost knocking him over as he came in hard, thick jets all over himself, all over the counter. The sudden throbbing pressure in Arin’s ass immediately set Dan off and he came roughly, his whole body going weak, his red face burning hot, lips parted, eyelids pressed tightly together.

Dan’s knees went weak and he collapsed against Arin’s back, frantically panting, inhaling the scent of Arin’s hair and sweat. It wasn’t exactly like inhaling the scent of a bouquet, but it was the best smell in the world to him in that moment, because it was Arin, because he loved him. Dan didn’t think to define said love, only felt its presence blocking out the fearsome world surrounding them. Felt it permeating every part of himself, a honeycombing sweetness.

“And now,” Arin panted, gently separating himself from Dan and rolling belly-up so they could share a few breathless, pecking kisses, “you know why I love butt stuff.”

“I believe I can appreciate why, yes,” Dan teased, the corner of his mouth quirking. Arin gave him a tight hug before he let Dan slip his softening dick from his hole. Together, they used some of the rest of Arin’s water and some paper towels to clean up, shuddering at the cold, but happy for this little bit of private time.

Dan pecked Arin on the lips before grabbing his backpack. “Go ask the girls if they want to come. I’ll go see if my van’s all right.”

 

*** 

 

To Dan’s surprise, no one had tried to lift his car. In fact, it was still filled with gas and hummed like a kitten when he turned the keys, though it hadn’t been touched for months. He let out a relieved sigh as he settled into the driver’s seat. 

From the tarred, cloistered world of the parking lot, little had seemingly changed. The sun still shone in the sky, and it felt warm and sweet outside - the sort of mild day that was rare in California, the kind Dan used to love, back when they weren’t scented with the odor of moldering flesh.

He heard the trunk open, his hand tightening on the stock of the gun he’d strapped to his thigh for a second before he heard Arin’s laugh. He and Suzy slid into the back seat, then the passenger side opened and Holly slipped into place beside him. 

“We loaded up on extra food and grabbed some more weapons,” Arin said. “You said he’s in Long Beach?”

“Yeah, I’m guessing at Mambo Sound.” That was where Brian had told him he was going to be when the first case struck and everyone went on lockdown. “Is everyone ready?”

Holly just nodded, but Suzy seemed almost enthusiastic as she took hold of the knife she’s stashed upon her hip. “Ready as ever,” she smirked.

It was Dan who let out a gasp of surprise as they pulled out of the parking lot and into the street, having his first unpleasant shock of the day. Holly’s hand tightened on his wrist and he heard Arin curse beneath his breath.

On the street outside of their studio, the bodies of the Dying lined the way, having fallen where they were stricken, with carrion birds dotting their hapless skin.


	3. Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip to Long Beach begins.

The first few miles away from the loft were surprisingly calm, surprisingly silent. Dan turned on the radio and flipped past his favorite stations; most of them were repeating the news. 

“Try 101,” Arin suggested. Dan flipped there and, as if by magic, there was music playing over the airwaves. Dan felt his muscles relax as the cab filled with its sound – The Beatles chirping about Norwegian Wood under the nervy strum of sitars – and his heart was lulled to the rhythm of the beat. It was funny that music was always his Rosetta Stone, his way back to himself. 

Arin was humming in Dan’s ear as they passed through open checkpoints, men with long rifles in sweat-stained khakis waving them through mountains of sandbags, flashlights shining over their faces – confirming that they were not infected with the Dying, for the dying, like Gremlins, hated bright light. Even with the constant sweep of military operation happening around them, people continued to try to live their lives. Restaurants and churches were open, as were some stores; Dan noticed a cheeky signs and placards. ‘All Living Customers: 50% off’, read one – Suzy read it out loud, and Holly groaned at the pun as Arin howled. There were a number of people on the street this afternoon; even kids playing double-dutch, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the biohazards that were being cleaned up, bit by bit, by the overwhelmed medical examiner.

“Take a left onto the highway,” Holly said, tapping at her phone.

“I remember how to get to Long Beach,” Dan teased her. 

“I thought maybe your hair had eaten your brain,” she teased. 

“Nah. It’s still up there,” he said, patting at his head playfully. She grinned at him but he bit back further comment as they stopped before yet another checkpoint.

“All all right in there?” asked the man sitting on the guard rail.

“Yep,” Dan said. Holly reached into the glove compartment for Dan’s registration, and he handed over his license.

“Where you headed?” asked the cop.

“Long Beach.”

The cop let out a whistle. “Ain’t heard from anyone there in four months.”

Fear curled itself into a sour lump in Dan’s stomach, but he pressed on. “We’re luckier,” Dan said. “I got a text from a friend the other day. He’s been hiding from the Dying for months.”

“Fine,” the cop said, squinting at their registration. “Everything seems to be in order,” he remarked, handing the papers back and tilting his hat back. “Stay safe, kids.”

“Planning on it, man,” Dan said, and pulled the car back into drive.

“Y’know we’re fucked when even the cops are nice,” said Dan, when they were far enough away from the cop to avoid being overheard.

“Come on, Dan – the guy was just doing his job,” Arin said. 

“I guess so,” Dan said. He remembered how thoroughly nice the cops had been to him when he’d gotten himself arrested in Boston with a case of beer. He was aware of how lucky he’d been, then and now. There was, he knew, a time where he wouldn’t be nearly as lucky. He’d never even had a thought like that before, but now it wouldn’t stop itching at him.

The highway before them was desolate. Dan kept the car moving, while Arin tried to riff on the guard’s words. Songs cycled along. Holly kept a melancholy eye out, texting Ross whenever she hit a wifi hotspot. Suzy and Arin got sick of joking around and started making out like a couple of teenagers in a horror movie. 

Long Beach, Dan noted, was much quieter. Fewer people dotted the streets, fewer bodies lined the roads, but in the windows large swaths of yellow material had been hung – a folk remedy known to ward away the Dying.

Dan couldn’t help but notice, too, that the sun had started descending below the rim of the horizon and Dan wondered if they’d have to sleep overnight at the studio when it happened. 

Twenty miles from Voodoo, with the car passing through a stretch of suburban strip malls, then the car began to sputter. He glanced at the gauge and groaned at the sight before him, pulling off into a mostly-empty parking lot.

“What?” Arin asked, pulling out of Suzy’s embrace, seemingly not noticing the grey tinge Dan’s complexion and the way Holly had gone stiff in her seat.

His words were quick, and bitterly spoken. 

“We’re out of gas.”


	4. Primeval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their emergency pit stop allows Suzy to test her burgeoning skills.

Arin was incensed as they disembarked from the car, kicking at its tire. “How the fuck did this happen?” 

Dan had a hand on the back of his car, staring forlornly at the behemoth. “I don’t know, man. It said it was full.” 

“Did you check the oil?” asked Holly. Dan nodded. “Maybe the coolant needs to be replaced.” Dan glared at her and Holly wilted.

“Okay,” Suzy said, “that’s easy enough. Guys, why don’t you siphon some gas while Holly and I go explore?”

“You sure you really want that, babe?” Arin eyeballed the deserted parking lot – less a scene of chaos then one of desolation. Dan noticed for the first time how utterly empty it all was – how painfully quiet – and felt his stomach go icy. LA had never felt quite this silent.

The strip mall where they’d pulled off the road was a known entity to them; he’d stopped off to grab things for himself and Brian for years. “Yeah. There should be car stuff in the convenience store,” he told them. Holly listened closely but there was something rebellious in Suzy’s eyes. 

“If I find supplies I’ll bring some,” she said. She stood on her tiptoes and pecked Arin’s lips, while Dan and Holly nervously averted their eyes.

“Don’t do anything crazy,” Arin begged Suzy when he let her go.

She took Holly’s hand. “Do I ever?” she grinned, and walked away from the car.

*** 

“Think we should’ve let them go alone?” 

Arin’s sudden words made Dan cough and sputter, spitting out gasoline and gagging as it flowed into the jury-rigged siphon worked its magic. The sound of gas filling an empty tank proved Dan's inattention. They’d found an abandoned car – full of gas but undisturbed across the lot. A stone through the window and a passkey had solved the rest of their problems, but the siphoning process hadn’t been pleasant. “I think,” Dan said, after Arin had given him a water to rinse his mouth out with, “that they’ll be fine. Suzy can like, throw a knife into a target from twenty feet now, she’s becoming super cool.”

“She’s the kind of cool I wish she didn’t have to be.” The gas tank was nearly full as Dan yanked the siphon out.

“We’re all a lot of things we never thought we’d have to be,” said Dan tiredly. “Why did you ask Suz to come with us, anyway? We won’t be gone from the office for more than a couple of days.”

Arin’s smile dimmed, and Dan winced at his tone of voice. “You don’t know how it is,” Arin said. “After my mom died I couldn’t risk it.”

“Don’t tell me I don’t know how it is,” Dan snapped. “I haven’t heard from anyone back home in fucking days. Don’t you think I’m worried as fuck about my family?”

They faced each other down. The tension floating between them surprised Dan. He hadn’t thought there were any problems when they were together in the eden of the Grumpspace.

That was when the sound of glass crashing, followed by the wraithlike, decapitated form of a crashing though the plate glass front of the convenience store, landing in a gooey lump on the hood.

Dan and Arin shrieked as they reeled back from the still wiggling body. Green and grey slime oozed from the flailing limbs and the wormlike texture of its skin cracked and rotted, spilling pale organs all over the hood. Dan bit his tongue, tried not to gag, grabbing Arin’s shoulder and babbling about the keys.

While the men fumbled, Suzy strode through the gap in the window made by the body with bizarrely confident ease, kicking its decapitated head out of her way as it melted down the sidewalk like demonic ice cream, the bloody goo still glowing on the hilt of her oversized knife. Holly was still shaking, holding as many supplies the two women could pack away in two paper grocery bags. A shaking Arin jammed the keys into the lock as the women approached.

“There was one more – it’s in the freezer, let’s go, let’s get out of here, COME ON ARIN,” Suzy said, her hands shaking just enough to make Dan question her confidence. Then the door was opening and they were piling themselves into the car, listening to the unearthly howling of whatever Suzy had locked away scraping to get out.

Dan didn’t have a coherent thought until they were speeding up the highway to their destination. That was when he heard Holly sniffling beside her and gently pressed his hand to her upper thigh. She reached down, squeezed his fingers but kept her eyes on the road.

In the back seat, Arin was trying to ball out Suzy. “Are you crazy?!” Arin yelled. “Do you know how dangerous that was?”

Dan saw her in his rear view mirror, smugly chewing on a stick of jerky. “It was totally fine. Look, we’re both alive, and thanks to all of the drilling we’ve been doing I know how to cut them up without getting hurt. You need to stop being a baby.”

“I don’t care! Just don’t…don’t fucking do it again, all right?” Arin yelled, slamming his fist into the door handle. Silence filled the cab, except for the cheery disembodied voices on the radio and the sound of Arin’s angry breathing. 

Dan took a left and pulled the car down the highway. The industrial neighborhood Mambo was located in looked like something out of Resident Evil; everything was gloomy, gray, and had been scribbled on or trashed. Large splotches where the Dying had fallen and decayed stained the fossil-colored sidewalk; also bloody tracks, as if a human being had been pulled away and apart at great speed. 

“This is it,” Dan said, as they came upon the turn. 

Parking the car, locking it futilely, he let out a dismayed groan at the sight before him. 

Across the studio’s generic entrance, in bright red, almost cheerfully scrawled looping letters, someone had scrawled, “damned are the hopeful.”


	5. Persevere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan searches for Brian in the abandoned recording studio.

“This is some Resident Evil shit.”

Dan frowned at Arin’s declaration. For the third time, he jammed his elbow into the locked and closed front door of the studio. “It’s fucking barricaded,” he grunted. “We’re gonna have to go through the back.

Suzy poked his shoulder, pointed at a window near the vestibule. “Or we could go through there.”

“And how are we gonna get through the glass? Just punch through it?”

Suzy shrugged. “Thanks for the idea,” she said. She started looking about her on the ground, clearly for something to throw through it.

Arin laughed nervously. “Suz, remember that little conversation we had about crazy stunts…” he trailed off as she picked up a large rock, long discarded and lying like a carcass in the middle of the roadway, and jammed it full force through the glass window to Arin’s open-mouthed shock and Dan’s squeak of dismay. Glass sprayed as she used the edge of it to clear out the entryway, then made way for both Arin and Dan.

“I don’t fucking believe…jesus Christ, Suzy!” Arin kept complaining, but he scrambled through the hole anyway.

“You weren’t doing anything, so I thought I’d help out,” she said sweetly. “Danny, go find Brian…” she looked about at their surrounding for the first time, at the disorganized mess that had overtaken the once orderly recording studio, to the graffiti that had been sprayed on the walls. “…I don’t want to hang around here for very long,” she said.

“Me either,” Dan said, and he flicked on his cell phone’s flashlight before heading toward the studios at the back of the office.

*** 

Funny how time had a tendency to warp what was once so clear. Dan could clearly recall the happy hours he’d had with Brian here – with Arin – recording sections of the last two albums with them. Now he shuffled through discarded papers and avoided bashed-in instruments that had been employed in defense, walked gingerly over clots of dark red blood embedded into the carpet, and worried about where the thing that had caused so much chaos had gone.

“Bri?” He called. “Brian? It’s Danny….” The floor creaked under his foot. “Please tell me you’re okay and I didn’t wander like, into a fucking hillbilly horror movie where I get eaten…” 

A door at the far end of the room open. Through the short distance Dan could barely make out his best friend – his blue eyes, his thick beard, his sweat-stained tropical shirt. 

“Jesus Christ, Bri,” he said, and rushed toward him. 

Brian held out a hand, palm out, supplicating, begging Dan to stop.

Dan heard the growl behind him a second later. It was followed instantly by a gunshot blast and a wave of hot goo pasting him in the back. By the time he’d let out a scream, the Dying creature behind him lay twitching in a puddle of its own effluvia. 

Dan cringed back and let out a yelp. “Fucking Jesus Christ, man!” he yelled. Thankfully none of the goop had gotten into his mouth, nose or eyes, but he back of his hands were coated and would need a thorough rinsing.

Brian watched him with dispassionate amusement. He put down what looked like a homemade gun to Dan. “Hi Danny. I see you got my message.” 

Dan’s response was to faint extravagantly at Brian’s feet.

The older man sighed and dragged him into the safety of the studio before slamming the door shut again.


	6. Probe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian and Dan play catch-up.

Dan came to as a flood of cool water poured over his red cheeks. Brian was standing over him, a bottle of cool water in his hand. His expression was sardonic – but then again when was Brian’s expression most of the time, especially when there was something incredibly serious on the line and he wanted Dan to know that he wanted his full attention.

Good. The end of the world hadn’t changed something for once.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he said, flat-toned.

Dan sat up gingerly, rubbing the back of his head. Shaking his wet curls like a dog, he noticed suddenly where he was – in one of the studios where they’d recorded the last set of vocals before this mess had rained down upon them. Brian had apparently been living there the entire time, judging from the detritus that was neatly and precisely arranged around garbage cans. 

“Morning,” he said, half a smile tilting his lips upward. “Nice toy.”

Brian shrugged, tapped the homemade weapon against his ankle and grinned. “Ripped apart a console in another room to make it. It’s just a simple, air-propulsive weapon that spits projectiles at rapid force. I thought I’d beat them at their own game and blast them to bloody shards.”

Dan nodded his head, all of this beyond his comprehension at the moment. He has to resist asking the big question, wondering why Brian had never bothered to call him throughout the months. He’d clearly been surviving here, better than most people out there were. Had he been subjected to the same outages and difficulties as they had?

Why wasn’t he saying anything?

“So,” Brian said suddenly, stuffing his cell phone into his back pocket, “when are we leaving? I need to check on my wife and the baby.”

“As soon as you’re ready,” Dan said, springing to life. “Are there any more of those things out there?”

“I can’t tell for sure,” Brian admitted. “Stay behind me,” he advised.

Dan carefully stood up. “So did you finish it?”

Brian’s smile was a ghost of a sideways grin. “Your lullaby? Did what I could with it. Wasn’t pretty when this unpleasant business occured. Didn’t have much help – and the help that was left was…indisposed.” He patted his pocket. “Loaded it into a hard drive. I don’t know when we’re…if we’re even going to see the rest of the guys.” He drove the words from his tongue with firm stridency. “But we’ll have it to listen to.”

Dan noted quietly how much effort Brian was exerting to maintain control of his emotions and didn’t press him. Just laid an open palm upon his shoulder. 

An amazingly clean hand, Dan suddenly realized. And that he was also wearing the spare shirt he’d packed. God, he must’ve gone out hard.

“I threw out what you were wearing,” Brian said. “You don’t want to risk wearing it after they get at you. Learned that one the hard way.” Brian moved to grab his runsack, a beaten-up thing he’d had since Bushwick. He hoisted it up over a strong shoulder and leaned back with a sigh, shaking off Dan’s touch. He pointed at the bottle of alcohol he’d sat up on the mixing board. “That seems to neutralize the disease. Doesn’t seem to help when it’s in the blood, but it washes away the effluvia.”

Dan stared at him. Wondered what Brian had done and seen with whoever and whatever had had the misfortune to linger in the recording studio after the disaster went down.

“I got the routine,” Dan said, grimacing. 

“Right. Well.” Brian gave one last look to the place where they’d germinated a seed of greatness and fostered it between them. A place that wasn’t ever going to be the same again. “Let’s go. You came alone?”

“Nope. Suzy, Arin and Holly are here too.”

“An entire rescue party? Why didn’t you bring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck too?” Brian wondered playfully. Wedging the door open with the gun, Dan stood at his back, flashlight ap gleaming.

“It’s fucking amazing to see you, man,” Dan said.

Brian’s smile was close to a grimace. “Likewise,” he said, propping the gun against his hip. 

They walked together into the darkness, and the hope of safety.


	7. Prevent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They travel to Brian's house to check on his family, but there may be something unpleasant waiting in the wings...

The hall was deserted, but Brian and Dan crawled up it step by step, trying to pace themselves, to get to the end of the line as quickly as possible. It was gloomy – dark, and Dan’s recharged phone at least kept the path back to the lobby lit with enough thin, milky light to get them where they needed to go. 

His stomach unknotted when he found Arin, Suzy and Holly playing cards in the lobby; the three of them all but charged Brian, hugging him, fussing over him.

“Gee, how a bout a little sugar for me?” Dan wondered rhetorically. Arin rolled his eyes, reached over and grabbed a handful of rather flat buttcheek. 

Dan yelped, and Brian raised an eyebrow; Holly and Suzy just rolled their eyes, used to it. “Here,” Holly said, handing him a Nestle’s Crunch Bar.

Dan ripped the chocolate bar opened and wolfed down a mouthful of the food before bothering to question what he was doing. “Where did you find these?” he asked.

“There’s a vending machine near the lady’s room,” she explained. “We raided it.”

“Well, Arin shook it and Holly punched it while I harvested the goodness,” Suzy said.

“How did I miss you turning into Xena?” Brian asked Suzy.

She shrugged. “It’s a new world, and modern women have to change with the times.”

“Speaking of changing,” Arin said, giving Dan’s outfit a meaningful look.

“Brian had to take care of some business back there,” Dan said. 

“Do you think we can get back to my place before sundown?” Brian wondered. 

“It’s close to that now – you live fifteen back, right? Sure, no problem,” Arin said confidently. 

“Good,” Brian’s posture softened. “I…haven’t spoken to Rachel in a few weeks, and I’m afraid to find out…” He trailed off, clearing his throat. “Well, I’m sure everything’s fine.”

“Right,” Dan said and placed his hand on Brian’s shoulder.

He could deal with Arin’s weird and clearly presented jealousy another day.

 

**

 

The car trundled toward the peace of Glendale with due speed. Brian kept tapping at his phone the whole way there, and Dan kept trying to distract him, telling filthy jokes that made Arin laugh and Suzy wrinkle her nose. Holly poked him right in the side and said that that was enough. It was dusk by the time they turned off the highway. The suburban streets were quieter than the main drag of the town – frozen in time, and doors hung wide open, lawns were wrecked with enormous footsteps, hunks of grass dragged out of lawns and fields of mud where flowers once stood. One such pathway lead into Brian’s home. 

The lights were still on, and it was quiet. Eerily quiet in ways Dan had never connected to that space before.

And the door was open, leeching milky light onto the concrete.

They got out of the car slowly, approached carefully. “Okay,” Brian said, holstering his weapon. “Let’s regroup.”

They circled up on his doorstep. “Do you think we should call the cops to clean the place out?” Arin asked.

“There isn’t enough time – it’s nearly dark. We’ll never….”

“Daddy!” shouted a tiny tremulous voice, and Brian was off like a shot before Dan could stop him.

Suzy followed behind, and all Dan could do was gulp, steady himself, lock eyes with Arin and make bold haste into the belly of a home that had always welcomed him but now…

Now, it might be a death trap.


	8. Premeditate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A temporary paradise is achieved - and interrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the tags!

Brian was shouting his child’s name. Shouting it loudly enough to be heard by Dan on the opposing end of the house as he frantically tried to catch up with him.

“Bri!” he had a hand on his elbow, and whirled around. “Don’t go any deeper without backup, man.”

“It’s my daughter…” he said.

“Yeah, but it also might not be. They can throw their voices,” Dan hissed. 

“I’m aware of what they can do, Danny,” he said. Dan’s heart throbbed at the back of his throat. Then a tiny, white blur ran toward them, throwing herself sobbing at Brian’s leg.

The baby was sobbing. Dan could see in the semi-darkness that her face was dirty; Brian quickly examined her body for bite marks or scratches, and Dan looked away, afraid, too, of what might be hidden. He only looked back when Brian let out a loud sigh of relief.

“She’s clean,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Shh, baby, I’m so sorry…”

“Daddy daddy daddy daddy,” she chanted, sobbing, squeezing his face between her tiny hands. Then, happily, recognizing him, she rushed over and grabbed his leg. “Dinny! Dinny, hello!”

“There’s my favorite girl,” Dan said, and crushed her to his skinny chest. She felt skinnier than she had the last time she’d given him a ferocious hug. Then again they were all a lot skinnier nowadays.  
A second light flooded the room; it was Arin, and there was a sadness in his eyes. 

“We swept the place. It’s clean, but…”

Brian stared up at him, his eyes a luminous, glittering shade of blue. “What? Be straight with me.”

He glanced at the baby. “Dan, can you take her into the living room? Suzy and Holly are cleaning up. They’re taking advantage of the electricity being on to make a real dinner. The two of you can help.”

Dan hated him for just a second – for his authoritarian bullshit, for not letting Dan be the one to tell Brian what was wrong. He nodded stiffly, took the baby and started walking away. 

“Daddy!” she sobbed over his shoulder, as he moved into the light of the living room.

“Daddy’s here,” Brian said quietly. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Then they were back in the living room, and Holly and Suzy’s expressions were sallow in the light, but they took him in with small smiles. “What’s going on?” Dan asked – the alarm in his voice was quiet but audible. 

Holly’s eyes darted from his face to the kid’s. “Suz, can you take the baby?”

Suzy nodded, took her, sat her on the counter, tickled her toes before rinsing her hands in the tap. The Wecht’s water came from a private well, and would be clean unlike anything coming from a public main. 

Dan and Holly went to the bathroom for privacy’s sake, and Holly immediately began to spill forth the truth. “We found a blood stain in the basement. There’s scattered laundry down there, too. And no sign of Rachel at all.”

Dan’s eyes widened. “How long…”

“Enough for it to dry. There aren’t any broken windows. We have no idea what happened, but that might be why the door was open, and why the baby’s so scared.”

“But there’s no body?”

“Nothing,” she said. 

Dan’s features crumpled. Tears flowed for a few minutes, and Holly wrapped herself around him, running her hands through his hair, making soft nonsense noises. He kissed her cheek in thanks, and didn’t bother to ask himself whether it was a morally right idea, to kiss a woman who was married, a woman whose husband was a best friend and his brother in every way that counted.

When they entered the room again, Brian was sitting with his daughter, playing peekaboo. Dan could see the stress in his eyes, on his face, and he approached, squeezing his shoulder. Brian held his hand there for a long minute, until his daughter began to fuss and pull at his wrist.

“Why doesn’t Danny go help Arin cook?” he wondered. 

“Nice hint, dude,” Dan said.

“Your attention might be best applied elsewhere. I think that’s fair to say.” Dan hesitated.

“Dinner’s almost done,” Arin interjected. Suzy and Holly had disappeared together, and when he called again – with a mountain of fresh pasta and cooked garlic bread – they reappeared, giddy-faced, wiping their flushed cheeks. Dan was smart enough to say nothing, to keep a straight face when Brian bowed his head and gave a vague thanksgiving speech. 

 

For the moment – this evening, this moonlit night – there was peace in the neighborhood. They all shut out their fears about Rachel’s possible fate. Searching in the daylight hours would be much easier. 

Dan let it soak into his bones, the food into his bloodstream and came – for a moment - to a comfortable rest.

*** 

The pattern became quietly domestic. Arin said that there was no real reason for them to leave, and Dan couldn’t find fault with that idea. Working wifi, clean well water, a working generator and well-enclosed domestic environs made them agree to the idea. They played with the baby, and cooked in Brian’s big kitchen, and Holly and Arin got creative with the food supplies while Suzy, Dan and Brian searched and traded and scavenged for what else they could find. When the meat supply ran out Holly and Arin took to fishing in the big freshwater pond that boardered the back of the property. Things were silent here, and quiet. Far too quiet, for Dan’s liking.

They locked the house up tight every night. 

Dan tried to ignore his worries. He got back into contact with Jersey – with his grandmother, sister and mother. They were tense on the east coast; someone in DC had been quarantined, displaying symptoms of The Dying. They were talking about shutting down plane service entirely; talking about stopping trains and closing state borderlines across the country. This was Dan’s life now. He had to put his head down and smile and tell his grandmother – who believed that this time would be survived, that they would get beyond it – and nod his agreement.

A week into their stay, with the child fed and yet another Sesame Street DVD playing her favorite song, Suzy came strolling out of the bedroom with an oversized sunhat on.

“Going moonbathing tonight?” Dan asked flatly.

“I’m going to go raid Brian’s neighbor’s yard. He’s got orange and lemon trees – I think a couple of apples too?”

“And pears,” Brian said lightly.

“I’m going to grab as much as I can and head back in. Wanna come, Dan?”

He shrugged. “Me and Holly are going to go fish again,” said Arin. 

Holly nodded. “And I’ve got some sewing plans.”

Suzy raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Dan wondered at her reaction; was she at all jealous of his relationship with Arin, and did that impact the clear jealousy she felt about Holly’s closeness with Arin?

But she smiled and looped a hand over Dan’s skinny elbow. “Come on, helper. Let me use you for your tallness.”

“Super kinky,” Dan grinned, and Suzy rolled her eyes as she dragged him away.

*** 

They stood side-by-side in the back, with a ladder open and propped against the fence. “How much do you think we should take?” Suzy asked. They were standing at the boarder of the property, and the trees’ limbs waved temptingly over their heads. 

“As much as we can carry,” suggested Dan. She nodded. “Want me to climb up?” he asked.

“I can handle this,” she said, and Dan grabbed the laundry basket they’d taken for their task. With one hand, he boosted her up and she dantily stepped onto the ladder, then reached over her head and began plucking the fruit. 

The apples came in an easy rain to his hands. Then there were lemons, fat and sweet-smelling – making his mouth water, to imagine lemon meringue pie. 

The orange tree was the tallest, Dan boosted Suzy up so she could start plucking the oranges and tossing them into the basket. When Dan had a full bundleful she stopped to take a look around.

“It’s such a beautiful….” She trailed off, eyes bulging out of her head, screaming as she tried to rush past Dan and off the ladder. She knocked him to his ass as she tried to put distance between what she was seeing and his weak body.

But he grabbed her to him, pinned her to his skinny bones and rocked her while she lost herself. “Oh my God,” she chanted, her hands shaking as she covered her face. “Oh my fuck – oh my fuck – oh God!” She wasn’t making sense. 

“What is it? What’s wrong? Scuzy!” He shook her slightly to get her focused.

“Rachel,” she blurted out, pointing with a shaking fingertip.

“What? What, honey?” he asked desperately. But she couldn’t get the words out. 

And Dan knew he’s have to climb up and see for himself. No questioning, no gutchecking – he’d have to climb up and see what Suzy had seen. So, step by step, his whole body shaking, he climbed to the height she’d achieved, then slowly turned his head and looked down.

He would never forget what he saw.

Rachel was still alive – or her body was. She was on the bottom of the neighbor’s empty swimming pool, and had been chained there ‘for safekeeping’ according to a crude sign inked in black paint. Bloody handprints affirmed her attempts at climbing out and over the top of the pool. 

Her black eyes looked right through him as she snarled, her teeth digging into the fat arm of what had once been Brian’s neighbor.

Dan couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t even puke. He remembered her wit, her kindness – how she’d always serve him first, when he came down to Brian’s for dinner. He descended the ladder slowly, then quietly wrapped both arms around Suzy, letting her pound her anger and fear out on his body.

***

Brian took the news with an utterly flat expression, a look that was so eerily affectless that Dan’s stomach lurched. 

“I have to take care of her before the sun goes down,” he said.

“Brian…” Dan said quietly.

“She’s my responsibility,” he said. Then, quietly, “please keep an eye on Audrey.”

He walked out the back door with his propulsion gun. Dan looked around the table, at the silent, haunted faces –as if they were a unit, they turned their heads toward the oblivious young child playing at their side.

“I hated being weak for him,” Suzy said from Arin’s arms. “I’m a girl. I can do everything.” Arin held her tighter, then reached over the cloth of gold to squeeze Dan’s hand.

“You’re a girl but you’re not superwoman,” Holly said reasonably, without looking up. She’d been trying to get an email through to Grumpspace and kept frowning at her laptop. “The connection speed’s fine. What the heck?”

They all jumped in concert when four shots rang through the air. 

Ten minutes later, Brian returned, dumping his weapon on the kitchen table.

“Good news,” he said, “we’ve got an extra house.”


	9. Prop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath, nightmares emerge - and Brian and Dan grow closer..

_Dan was falling._

_That was the primary sensation going through his body. He was falling back into blackness, and there was nothing behind him, nothing to climb onto. He felt something in the darkness, though. Something cold, brushing his fingertips. He turned in the direction of the sensation, icy dread clawing its way through his stomach._

_When he turned, he saw a grinning faceful of very sharp teeth._

_A grinning face belonging to Rachel._

“DINNY!”

Dan’s eyes flew open and he met with the innocent ones of Brian’s child. Relief filled him; he was dreaming; still alive, still in his friend’s house. He covered his distress for the child’s sake. “Hey, baby girl,” he said. She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a crushing hug. “What’s up?” he asked, between wheezes. 

“Daddy’s got pancakes!” she said. 

“He does?” Dan was yawning and stretching, putting on a clean shirt Brian had loaned him. The sun told him it was past noontime. When had he ever allowed himself to sleep that long?

Why had it taken him an apocalypse to allow himself to rest properly?

“He says get your butt up!” she added happily.

“I did not tell you to say that,” Brian said from the doorway, and was soon graced with an armful of squirming toddler. 

“Daddy! You said it!” she sang. He grinned and buried his face in her hair, heaving a little sigh while she monkey clung to his neck.

Then he placed her on the ground. “Please go finish your lunch.” He nodded at Dan. “Feeling okay?”

“Fine,” Dan said. “Where is everyone?”

“Holly found a wifi hotspot at the Seven Eleven. They raided the houses around us. We’ve got supplies enough to get back to the Space if we need to.”

“But?”

“It’s safer here, for the most part. We’ve got acerage to hide in, and enough firepower to back us up. Arin suggested we lie low for a couple of weeks and then go back to the city and get Vernon and the rest and bring them here.”

“All right,” Dan said, half-thoughtfully. Extra time was always a good thing. He came into the kitchen and found himself being fed blueberry pancakes, which he gobbled down out of a need for comfort and sustenance alike.

He noticed Brian was fairly composed as he sat down and had his own meal. Used to eating with him in comfortable silence in a diner or a speeding bus, it was weird to be here without Rachel looking over them. Weird to be without everyone else.

“You look like you saw the devil over my shoulder,” Brian said.

“Um,” Dan’s eyes widened. “Just thinking.” He finished the last of his pancakes and put the sticky dish in the sink. He ran it and his fork under the well water gushing from the taps, then said, “Bri, I know this is kind of personal but…you’re taking this well. Almost like you’re not afraid.” He’d fucking killed his neighbors, and as far as Dan knew they’d all been happy acquaintances before this mess.

“Danny, I’m not afraid of what’s happening,” he said flatly. “It’s a viral infection that rots its victims and gives them a very small window of infection. Eventually it’ll run out of susceptible or vulnerable people to kill.”

“Oh,” Dan said. “That sounds cool.” What could he say? Any cure or tipping point would come too late to save too many.

Brian rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

He turned back to his breakfast and, in the quiet of the day, they got on with the business of living. 

 

Time passed easily. The kid kept him happily busy – he’d forgotten how much fun it was to hang out with a toddler. Bittersweetly reminded of his nephews, he hoped they were happy and safe, even as he cut paper dolls with Audrey and went exploring for frogs in the backyard. 

Holly, Arin and Suzy returned with provisions by the evening meal, and they feasted together, laughing at their good fortune. Arin, Dan and Brian even started to compose a new song for the next Starbomb release – half-finished ideas and phrases they’d come back to later. If they even had an audience when this was over. 

When Dan returned to his guest bedroom he felt a wave of peace tease his senses. He’d slept maybe an hour or two before he heard the sound of something scratching at the outfacing wall.

Instantly awake, he grabbed the first sharp object he could find and ran for the back door. The rest of the house was so dark, so frighteningly still. Panic ran his life as he rushed out

….And saw Brian, digging a small hole for a bloody bundle at the furthest end of his garden, biting back sounds of grief.

It didn’t take much for Dan to figure out what the bundle was – Brian had never told him how he’d disposed of his wife. He reached out his arms and Brian quietly leaned into his grip.

“I don’t want you to be out here, Dan,” Brian said, between muffled gasps and sniffles. “If they get you I won’t be able to forgive myself.”

“But why…” Dan began.

“I wanted to mourn my wife in private,” he said. “It was my responsibility to take care of her.” Slowly, the fear and sadness left his face. “And it still is.”

Dan took the shovel from him. “Let me help.”

Brian kept his grip. It took a minute, maybe two, but he finally started to unclench his fingers. Dan took the shovel and plunged it into the rich earth. Brian fell to his knees and used his hands–between the two of them they managed to make a deep enough well to placed the body in, far enough away from the wildlife and water supply to avoid risk of contamination. He couldn’t – didn’t – look when Brian donned gloves and took the bundles to place them in the ground. Together they covered it.

Then they stood over the grave in silence. “The baby still thinks she’s coming back,” Brian said suddenly. “I tried to explain it but she doesn’t seem to understand.”

“She’s like two,” Dan said. 

“Yeah. But she knows about heaven.” Brian plucked a rose from a nearby bush – plump and red, he laid it upon the cool soil. “Fucking difficult being an atheist these days.”

Without even thinking about it twice, Dan took Brian’s hand. Their fingers were still interlaced when they entered the house, only breaking apart when they went to their separate rooms.


	10. Prayers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you saying your prayers, little star?”

Dan woke the next morning to his least favorite sound – people shouting. Pulling himself out of bed, he stumbled into the hallway. 

To his surprise, the screams were coming from Suzy and Arin. Paralyzed in the doorway, he listened to them fight, briefly realizing he’d never actually heard them argue before.

“…want to go home, Arin…”

“Yeah, and we will when the fucking streets are safe.” She growled low in her throat but said nothing more. 

“If we made it here we can make it back,” Holly said from the kitchen. “I’m getting scared, I haven’t heard back from Ross for a whole week.”

“We have food and resources,” Arin said. “It’s safer here than it is taking everything back to Glendale.”

“What about the cats?” she asked. “We only left them enough food to get through two weeks, and it’s been four…”

“We can call around and see if any of the neighbors are still standing. We don’t even know if our house is still fine, Suz.” His eyes pled with her, but her whole face had turned icy. Dan winced back into the doorway of his room, and through it he heard them fight on, until Brian came out with his daughter to separate them.

*** 

The day passed along in its now familiar pattern; foraging and preserving in the afternoon and morning, with healthy moments of play for the baby. They knew by now who was alive and who was dead in Brian’s neighborhood, and made notations in paint on the front of the houses. Two dead here. Three dead there. Red x’s everywhere. The people who were alive and uninfected they kept close contact with and offered to share with as frequently as possible. 

It was monotonous but comfortable. He even made contact again with his sister. Reports were getting scarier out there. There were rumors of infection in Texas, a scene in Minneapolis, a shooting in Boston conducted by an unknown, murderous other. 

“Are you saying your prayers, little star?” Mom asked him. 

God, he was almost tempted to.

The evening was peaceful, the baby sleeping on his chest, mumbling along to the sound of “How Far I’ll Go.” Dan swore he knew every single word of Moana by now but he kept smiling, kept singing along. 

“If Lin Manuel Miranda isn’t already dead I’m gonna take a hit out on him,” he grumbled to Suzy, who doubled over laughing. 

“Even mister ‘forgive everyone’ has a limit, huh?”

“I’m human!” Dan protested. Then he helped her toss the pasta salad she’d made together, and made tuna sandwiches. When Brian took the baby to bed his hand lingered for a minute longer than was appropriate on Dan’s shoulder, and Arin and Holly retired to the basement to get a signal on Holly’s phone.

That left Dan alone with Suzy, who seemed as bored as he was.

“Is everything okay with you and Arin?” she asked. “I noticed you haven’t been as touchy-feely as usual.” He and Arin had obtained quasi-permission from her to continue their affair, though Dan was fairly certain she didn’t know about their first, Netflix-laden encounter.

“Yeah. He’s just got a lot on his mind.” So did Dan. Probably why he’d gravitated toward the safety of Brian. “What about you two?”

“What about us?” she asked, fully facile. 

“If you want someone to bus you home, you could ask the military guys down in the baseball field?” That was where they’d stationed themselves, of course.

Suzy shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere without him.”

“But he wouldn’t want you to…”

“We’re a package deal,” she said, scooting off the couch. “It’s always going to be the two of us, even with other people involved. I promised til death do us part, and I meant it.”

Dan shivered at her proclamation. Flicking down the lights, he followed her toward the room she and Arin had claimed. She swung open the door, and before them lay a sight that neither had anticipated.

Holly and Arin stared back at them, the sheets drawn up to the middle of their chests, a look of fear-filled alarm in their eyes.

Suzy made a tiny whimper, the smallest sound of pain coming from the depths of her throat. Then she shoved Dan out of the way and rushed blindly back into the safety of the living room.

Dan met Arin’s gaze, trying to impart the disappointment he felt, the anger and betrayal, before closing the door tightly behind him.


	11. Perambulate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan tries to help Suzy. It does not go well.

Dan was on Suzy’s heels the whole way up the driveway. She was moving blindly, lost in her own pain, and Dan didn’t want to lose her to the wilderness outside. “Suz!” He shouted in desperation. 

Her eyes were wide, streaked with mascara and wild. “What? What are you going to tell me, Dan?” she snapped.

What was he going to tell her? That he was sorry? He truly WAS sorry, but that didn’t seem to matter. She seemed to be cool with whatever he and Arin had going on between them, but including others into the mix hadn’t been discussed apparently.

Who had time to talk when the world was falling apart around you? “Come here?” he begged, opening his arms. The sun was sweet and warm on his outstretched arms, encouraging his sprawl.

She threw herself against him. For a long time Dan stood still, behaving the sympathetic washcloth, letting her wring herself out against him. “We can’t stay out here,” he realized, as Suzy clung to his chest. 

“I know. But I can’t go back in there,” she said. “Can we walk around the neighborhood?”

“Yeah.” He held out his elbow and she took it, a little smile curling her upper lip.

“We make a pair,” she said. 

“A weird, lonely pair,” Dan said. Though they weren’t just a pair – there were his feelings for Arin and his worries about Brian to consider. It was more like they were a rather small commune, trying to make their way through life. They made a circuit of the block when they saw a mangy-looking beagle walking unsteadily up the block. 

Suzy made a sympathetic noise and reached for the creature but Dan gently got a hand between them. The dog was rearing, turning on them, by the time he’d grabbed Suzy’s hand and forced her to run.

They barely managed to climb a thick-limbed oak tree a few feet from Brian’s house. Clinging to each other, they stared down in horror at the rotting, disfigured, molting face of the creature that wanted to eat their faces. Tiny but vicious. Dan knew

“Do you have your cell phone.”

“Yeah,” Dan said, as she clung uncomfortably close to his side, “but one of us is going to have to reach for it.” 

She winced. “Ugh, okay.” She glanced downward. “Maybe he’ll go away soon.”

Dan nodded. Maybe if they gave it extra time, it would. 

Huddling together in the tree, wrapped up in each other’s arms, Dan thought to himself that this would be a ridiculous way to die. 

And likely far too fitting for his ridiculous life.

“It’s not fair,” she muttered. “Arin and I were going to do so much more, be so much more, and now…I’m going to fucking die in a tree. I don’t want to die, Dan – or if I have to die, I want to at least die happy.” 

The hungry look in her eye should’ve served as a major warning, but before Dan could circumvent anything, she was kissing his lips.


	12. Prostrate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Suzy, sitting in a tree...

He didn’t kiss her back - _couldn’t_ kiss her back, because he was too shocked to properly react in time. Suzy was all perfume and heat and mascara; a black-winged bat looking for somewhere to perch. Dan felt a little ravaged, a little out of control. When she leaned back, a wash of tears had clouded her gaze.

“You don’t want me to kiss you,” she sadly observed.

“I…did Arin know you were going to do that?” he asked. In spite himself, his loyalty at the moment was to Arin, to Brian, as much as he did love Suzy.

“Arin stuck his dick into Holly. I don’t give a fuck about his feelings right now,” she said.

Dan sucked in a sharp breath. He’d known they were committing infidelity, that the ‘okay’ hadn’t stretched far beyond he and Arin messing around for comfort and…yeah, he could admit it to himself now – love’s sake. “You know he loves you. HOW he loves you,” Dan said, almost bitterly. He remembered the before, could see himself quite clearly looking across the table and watching Suzy and Arin fawning over one another at countless meals. He’d always been the third musketeer, the outside, the one who didn’t have a steady girlfriend.

“I know how he used to love me,” she said.

The tree creaked ominously and they made a grab for one another, clinging against the cruel night air. His lips brushed hers. Without a second thought this time, they plunged into a heedless kiss, and it was a sensation Dan had only felt in Tobago, stepping into a whirlpool, swirling his way into something beautiful, unfathomable and beyond his control.

A shotgun blast startled them apart, wilted Dan’s hard-on, and made him sit up as straight as he could. There was a whimpering noise, then a beam of gray-white light from the street.

It was Arin; Dan could pick his features out in the moonlight.

“Come on,” Arin demanded, “jump down. There’s not a lot of time.”

Suzy hesitated for a minute before climbing down the tree and Dan followed, miraculously avoiding scraping his flesh against the bark and attracting more of Them. Arin led the way back to the car silently; Dan could smell his sweat and see the stark look of fear in his face.

When they pulled into the driveway it was a quiet night. Brian was teaching his daughter how to play jacks at the kitchen table, and Holly was watching a DVD in the living room. When Arin and Suzy entered the room they deliberately avoided Holly. The bedroom door slammed closed behind them.

Holly moved toward the counter, and took the baby into her lap. Beyond them, the muffled talking went on

Brian cupped his hand over Dan’s relaxed fingers.

Dan’s shoulders slumped. But he didn’t shift away.

 

*** 

The following morning, Arin made coffee with the last of his bottled water, his eyes heavily ringed. Dan jostled it about with his spoon, pouring sugar in by the ton.

“So we’re going to go back to the office,” he said.

“What?” Dan wondered. There was toast on a plate being shoved in his direction.

“We need to go check on everyone. I know they have enough food until supply lines come back into play but…” Arin shook his head. “I’m just worried about Ross, man.”

“He and Vernon are…”

“We haven’t heard from either of them in a week,” Arin said. “And if we don’t do something now we might never hear from them again. I don’t wanna leave Ross hanging out there with his ass flapping in the wind,” Arin said. “You can stay behind with the girls if you want, but I’m leaving today.”

There was danger in Arin’s eyes. Something bitter, something a little frightening.

“I’ll come with you, Ar,” he said quietly.

Arin smiled as he sat down beside Dan. “I knew you would, man.”

The toast tasted more bitter, more burnt, than it ever had to his tongue, shaded with the unspoken feelings, the thinks they had never managed to say.


	13. Prelude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Interlude

The drive was longer and more quiet than it had been when the girls were with them, and even that time had been silent as a tomb. Dan counted the faces and the miles in silence; Arin seemed far away from him, further than he had ever been before. But he couldn’t say anything when he was determined to keep a sort of distance between them. Dan desperately needed to speak to him, needed to feel his lips pressed to his.

Needed to know he hadn’t crossed too many lines by kissing Suzy. Needed to know Arin hadn’t broken Suzy’s heart by making love to Holly. Needed, wanted, needed.

He’d always thought that the apocalypse would bring on a sense of peace, a sense of freedom – he could go anywhere and do anything, much as he’d done in his twenties. But instead he felt lost, his desire for real love and understanding thwarted.

Dan braced himself as they turned onto the street where the office was. Arin drew to a slow crawl. “What the fuck?” Arin whispered softly.

“Holy shit,” Dan whispered.

They pulled the car to a stop, got out and looked around, Dan numbly, Arin frantically.

As well he should. The office was a smoking crater in the ground.


	14. Private

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arin and Dan struggle in the aftermath.

“What the fuck?” That was all Arin could keep repeating. He was staring at the neighborhood they’d once so loved, which had been perfectly peaceful and intact a month ago. The entire neighborhood had been gutted. Buildings stood open-faced on the sidewalk, or they were piles of concrete glistening in the sun.

Dan grabbed Arin’s shoulder, and he tried to fight him off. “Fucking stay with me,” he demanded. “We’ll find somebody to help, I promise…”

“How the fuck can you promise me anything?” Arin yelled. “Where…I thought...it’s been fucking weeks since I heard from any of them. Oh my God. What the fuck am I gonna tell Holly?! What the fuck am I gonna tell…”

“You don’t know if they’re dead!”

Arin took a step back from Dan. He looked at him, and started laughing hysterically. Dan cringed at the sound. He thought about slapping Arin across the face; just like he’d seen in multiple old movies. But what good would that do? He wanted to cry; he could feel tears flooding his vision. The last thing he wanted to do was lose it in front of Arin like this.

But then a flashlight shone upon them both, into Dan and Arin’s eyes, and Arin let out a yelp of pain. It was a soldier, on foot; how had he not heard the man approaching? The soldier aiming the light at them lowered his gun and removed his gas mask. 

“You’re human,” he said, and the disbelief in his voice was palpable. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“This was…our place,” Arin said. “We came back to check on some friends.”

The man grunted. “The block was firebombed a couple of days ago. Invading party of the Dying got into the sewers. We had to napalm ‘em to keep ‘em from spreading; evaced the survivors to the high school. Only good news is we don’t have a rat problem anymore.”

Dan saw hope in his lover’s eyes. “Do you care if we…?”

“I’ll give you an escort to the school. Least I can do – there’s nothing left here. Residents can’t come back to check on their property til the decontam squads get through.” He shook his head. “This is just a taste of what they’re planning on doing to keep the borders intact. Don’t want it spreading out of the state.”

It flashed through Dan’s mind what Brian had said long ago; that eventually the Dying would run out of victims, leave the rest of them standing. “My friend’s a scientist. He said that if we wait long enough, the whole thing will go away.”

The soldier laughed. “Not fast enough,” he said, sighing and taking a puff off of his cigarette. “Not fast enough.”

He stood frozen in the middle of the street. Arin grabbed his shoulder. “Come on. I don’t know what I came here to run away from…but it’s not here anymore,” he admitted.

Dan nodded. They turned toward the car, reentered it, and drove in the soldier’s wake. They knew where the highschool was, and that it was the only sign of life in the whole town emanated from its windows. 

But for now that was enough for Dan.

*** 

The highschool was at least well air-conditioned. In the middle of the summer they didn’t have to worry about caring for the students who would normally be overfilling the hallways. Everything smelled like lemon disinfectant. It reminded Dan of the hell of high school. It reminded him also of the annoying, cloying feeling of standing in a hospital room.

Dan crawled among the many gurneys set up in the gym. He didn’t see any familiar faces, so he stayed behind Arin. At the end of the first row he found Ross; who has a small burn on his cheek but was otherwise 

“Jesus christ,” Arin groaned. “I thought I’d never see you again..” They each nearly squeezed Ross to death in turn.

“Heh, dude, you’re gonna be stuck with me forever,” he said. “Uh…the office kind of blew up. Vernon…” Arin gulped, Ross just shook his head. “It was better he went out the way he did. Like a hero. Everyone else scattered. All I know is that I haven’t been able to get through to Holly. Is she…”

“Holly’s fine,” Arin said. He averted his eyes, which just made Ross look at him all the more sharply. “We’ve been staying at Brian’s place. Rachel’s gone but…uh…everyone else is doing okay.”

“Good,” Ross said. His tone remained reserved. “Are we going to get going?”

“That’s up to your doctors, man,” Arin said.

“I’m okay,” Ross said. “They didn’t touch me. This was from the building…” he trailed off and glanced upward.

The lights had begun to flicker ominously.


End file.
